Posts in the Headlines Category

Demonstrators assembled outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison on February 16 to urge action against the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which recently struck down restrictions on the corporate financing of political advertisements. Wisconsin Public Radio reported that the rally participants made speeches and rang “liberty bells,” hoping to draw attention to their issue and gather support for a constitutional amendment to overturn the court’s decision.

Majority Opinion

Justice:

Nominated By:

Anthony Kennedy

Ronald Reagan (R)

John G. Roberts

George W. Bush (R)

Antonin Scalia

Ronald Reagan (R)

Samuel Alito

George W. Bush (R)

Clarence Thomas*

George H.W. Bush (R)

*Thomas concurred with the majority’s primary opinion but dissented on another section.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, announced on January 21, marks a major change in the rules of electoral politics in America. It makes it possible for private corporations — whether for-profit companies, non-profit organizations, or unions — to use their money to air political advertisements in favor of or against specific candidates in the days before an election. This kind of direct corporate involvement in politics had previously been illegal, banned by legislation going back to the Tillman Act of 1907 and including most recently the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Their bill passed 59-41 in the Senate, but part of the act has now been voided by the 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision.

Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke for the court’s majority by arguing that any law restricting corporations from airing political advertisements was an infringement on the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Kennedy wrote:

By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. … We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers. Both history and logic lead us to this conclusion.

Dissenting Opinion

Justice:

Nominated By:

John P. Stevens

Gerald Ford (R)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Bill Clinton (D)

Stephen Breyer

Bill Clinton (D)

Sonia Sotomayer

Barack Obama (D)

Meanwhile, dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed with the premise that a corporation constituted a “disadvantaged person.” Speaking for the court’s minority, he wrote:

The fact that corporations are different from human beings might seem to need no elaboration, except that the majority opinion almost completely elides it. … It might also be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their “personhood” often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.

Madison’s demonstrators agreed with those words. Some carried signs with slogans like “Abolish Corporate Personhood” and “Overrule the Court!” I applaud their position. Corporations are not humans. They exist only on paper as tools created by people to achieve some goal. The individual rights of the people involved in corporations — shareholders, directors and employees — were never in question. They have always held the right to speak as individual citizens. The Supreme Court’s ruling, as I see it, now gives corporate executives twice the rights that other people hold: their own unalienable right to speak as individuals, plus the right to speak through the corporations they control using those corporations’ money and power. Corporations hold immense concentrations of wealth, and because they are often structured simply to generate more, their interests are self-serving. Wealthy multinational corporations can easily outspend real individuals in a race to promote their profit-driven political agendas. Far from enhancing free speech, the court’s ruling will help powerful corporations drown out the voices of actual people with real human needs.

On November 4, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America. His election was historic, not only because of the racial barriers it shattered, but also because this election marks the end of the longest, costliest, and most-watched presidential contest in American history. The tremendous interest in this campaign, both in America and abroad, are a testament to the global desire to embark upon a new course in world affairs. It is unsurprising, then, that Barack Obama was able to campaign and win on a platform of change. Indeed, it was this message—this promise of change and hope—that drew such massive and emotional crowds to Mr. Obama’s campaign.

Following the election on Tuesday, the largest crowd to date gathered in Chicago to celebrate Mr. Obama’s victory. This was a momentous event, but the conclusion to this election must not mark an end to the interest, involvement, and spirit that went into the campaign. The president-elect himself acknowledged as much while delivering his victory speech:

This victory alone is not the change we seek—it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.

No other portion of Mr. Obama’s speech can rival the importance of these few sentences. We must not rest contented simply out of the knowledge that the election is over and that a new president has been chosen. Regardless of political affiliation, anyone who really seeks change must do more than simply vote once in every four years. It is not enough to merely expend this quadrennial effort and then wait lazily in the interim for the officials we’ve elected to fix our problems. Instead, we must take an active role in the direction our country takes.